Two of the most illustrious and wonder-working saints of the country, Saint Pol de Léon and Saint Jean du Doigt, were established at only a short distance from Morlaix; the former a little to the north-west of the town, the latter a little to the north-east. The town of St. Pol de Léon stands on the coast. From the boldness and beauty of the workmanship of the cathedral, it was supposed that it could hardly have been executed by mortal hands; it would have been to the honour of the saint to have ascribed it to him, as a notable worker of miracles, but, by the most fervent, the architecture is attributed to the devil.
Miss Plumptre says, “The name of this episcopal see has become familiar in England, from its bishop having made a very conspicuous figure in his emigration hither, and having here at length ended his days. I did not find the character of this prelate more popular among his fellow-countrymen in Brétagne, than it had been among his fellow-emigrants in London: they gave him the same character,—of one of the most haughty, insolent, and over-bearing among the ecclesiastical dignitaries in France; and while the Brétons had in general an almost superstitious veneration for their clergy, they regarded this bishop with very different sentiments.”
The honour of having given birth to St. Pol de Léon is ascribed to England about the year 490. When a boy he gave an earnest of what might in future be expected of him. The fields of the monastery in which he was a student, were ravaged by such a number of birds, that the whole crop of corn was in danger of being devoured. St. Pol summoned the sacrilegious animals to appear before the principal of the monastery, St. Hydultus, that they might receive the correction they merited. The birds, obedient to his summons, presented themselves in a body; but St. Hydultus, being of a humane disposition, only gave them a reproof and admonition, and then let them go, even giving them his benediction at their departure. The grateful birds never after touched the corn of the monastery. In a convent of nuns hard by, situated on the sea-shore, and extremely exposed to the tempestuous winds of the north, lived a sister of St. Pol. She represented the case of the convent to her brother; when he ordered the sea to retire four thousand paces from the convent; which it did immediately. He then directed his sister and her companions to range a row of flints along the shore for a considerable distance; which was no sooner done than they increased into vast rocks, they so entirely broke the force of the winds, that the convent was never after incommoded.
For some reason or other, it does not appear what, St. Pol de Léon took a fancy to travel, and walked over the sea one fine morning from England to the Isle of Batz. Immediately on landing there, by a touch of his staff—for saints used a staff instead of a wand, which was the instrument employed by fairies—he cured three blind men, two who were dumb, and one who was a cripple with the palsy.
A count de Guythure, who was governor of Batz at the saint’s arrival laboured under a mortal uneasiness of mind, on account of a little silver bell belonging to the reigning king of England, the possession of which, in defiance of the injunction contained in the tenth commandment, he coveted exceedingly. St. Pol ordered a fish to swallow the bell, and bring it over: this was instantly performed; but the saint had provided a rival to himself, for the bell became a no less celebrated adept in miracles than he was, and between them both the want of physicians in the country was entirely precluded. The bell was afterwards deposited among the treasures in the cathedral of St. Pol de Léon.